Here’s some live footage of us with a conga and timbale player.,. I didn’t mute anything in the styles....

https://youtu.be/d_au_2R2a_4

I was booked to play at a high-end country club, they wanted two musicians so I hired a drummer. His ability was not at question., he was good.

Problems:
1-A drummer’s main job is to hold the beat, now he being asked to follow a machine.

2-Because we had to hold the volume down the drummer had trouble hearing the style. The speakers were at each side of the stage. His drum was right in front of him, not good. I had to move one speaker behind him. It was not a good night.

My question is, why use a drummer? Sax, trumpet, even vibes add much more, they are live. With my band we had a cowbell, tambourine, and timbalies. (Spelling?) At the right time they added a lot.

I was in an audition of bands; people came to book a band for their wedding and parties. There was a band playing Latin music, they were fantastic. Drummer, two Percussion, and a drum machine.

Using midi I added a drum machine to my Kn7000, what a marriage. I used a foot pedal to control the volume of the drum machine. I was able to add different drum sets, breaks, and combine styles. The sounds of the drum machine were far better than my keyboard. It worked very much like the pads on a keyboard.

The world of music has been so rewarding, John C.

My question is, why use a drummer?

Good question John.

The drums on my KB ( especially my Audya) sounds fantastic. So why use a live drummer? The simple answers quite honestly is for the visual aspect. Canned drums are simple not accepted in certain situations. It gives a group a very fake look. It just too obvious.

Besides the visual aspect, a live drummer can add so much energy and visual excitement by using rhythmic accents and interactions .

For that low volume duo event that you pñsyed at John, it sounds like a drummer was not the best option but a drummer that has trained their whole life with a click and lots of experience with playing live with tracks could have totally pulled it off. Besides having rock solid time, a good drummer has excellent dynamics and has no problem playing whisper soft.

I think the question should be why not go 100 percent live ? That’s a whole new topic! But my short answer is my clients budgets and my left hand are not up to the task!

By the way in the video that posted above, while there is no drum set player , there are two very good percussionist. The gentlemen on congas and and his 14 year old daughter is on timbales. Both can play really well live, with a click, or with tracks . They live and breath percussion and train many hours a day , mostly with a metronome and playing along to albums. It shows in their timing

Let's discuss this. Why shouldn't a drummer be able to follow? It's just another member of an ensemble, right? Who says drummers get to be the leader? The bass is far more important to the overall groove in my world. I was taught by my HS jazz band instructor that if the rhythm isn't in the arrangement, then a drummer won't add it. We rehearsed all of our swing tunes without the drummer before adding one to the ensemble, and it paid off. The instrumentalists set the groove, found the pocket, and executed the tempo/feel ... all without the "need" for any one person, or instrument to "hold the beat." The beat was already created by the band, and we held it all on our own. In fact, more times than not, the drummer would affect the groove in a negative way when emotion, or fatigue would affect the skill level. Now, this shouldn't be an issue for a pro percussionist, but remember, this was HS, and most teenagers were easily excited. With excitement, usually came tempo shifts. Quiet sections would tend to slow down, louder ones would speed up - very frustrating for the rest of us. I've said it before - drummers NEED to own machines, and practice with them. Tempo is not a negotiable thing for a dance floor, and rock solid tempo does not translate in to "no feel." Quite the contrary, I've found. Feel is what we do with the melody, the expression, the nuances ... how we interpret the changes, and the style ... none of that is clouded, or reduced with an exact tempo. I feel very strongly about this (can you tell?) and I hope it doesn't offend anyone. I think a live drummer/percussionist with a DJ is a very modern way to add flash, and excitement to an, otherwise sterile show.

I've worked rooms that won't allow drums, and one that DID allow a kit, but no bass drum. It was a volume thing, more than anything else. The general listening public in venues that I play respond to the music in this level of hierarchy:
Song selection (play the hits, and favs)... even Jimmy Buffett tunes Russ?
Dance tempos (if that's the venue)
Melody, and personalization - sung, or instrumental (eye contact, smiles etc)
Bass (sets the foundation for the rest of the changes)
Chords, color sounds (fluff, icing, adds excitement)
Drums (the candle on the cake)

Our most successful method off dealing with this was a personal monitor right in the drummers ear. Often times, it was the same size, and power of the mains. I've also played in a horn section with a band that used sequences for every song. We simply played our parts over top of the arrangement. Added sizzle, and class, and we had great on -stage monitors - essential to this approach.

In fact, even in my solo endeavors - a good, personalized monitor mix is PARAMOUNT for me. I set the room for what is correct for the room ... that sometimes, is not what I choose to hear for my own comfort level.

In a duo using midi backing tracks, and the other guy is a drummer.

Tracks are a mix of commercial and homebrew, all to a greater or lesser extent adjusted to leave space for the drummer and myself to add meaningful contributions. Tempo and dynamics changes also added it required.

Over the years we have played a lot of ballroom dancing. Your tempos need to be rock solid and accuarate, and to do that we used a metronome until we felt confident we could do it freestyle.

The discipline this requires makes playing against a backing track much easier.

When I got my Ensoniqq ESQ1 I was recording some simple piano tracks to support an amateur music show. So I recorded myself and thought "that's not bad". Then I applied some quantization to tidy things up and discovered my tempo through the tunes was up and down like a yo-yo. Quite an eye opener!

In my trio (which I use 2 arrangers) the drummer plays with my drum tracks..just recorded 17 tunes in a studio..the percussion sounded awesome.

However, I invited a friend (drummer) that plays in a 80s band. and he had trouble playing with the arrangers drums